Welcome to SloBrary, the online space for sharing, collaboration and communication among those of us who care about libraries and literacy in
San Luis Obispo County.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Public libraries and e-books

By EDWARD M. EVELD - McClatchy Newspapers

June 8, 2011

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The public library has a simple and awesome system. Check out any book for free, as long as you promise to return it.
What could revolutionize this hallmark of civilized life? The electronic reader, a device that has been flying off the shelves.
It's news to a lot of folks, but many public libraries across the country offer digital books that can be read on such devices as a Nook or, with the right app, a smartphone. The potential is enormous: book-borrowing without the physical limits. Any book, any time, right?

"Some of the waiting lists are long," said Adam Wathen, collection development manager at Johnson County, Kan., Library. It's the same at Kansas City Public Library, director Crosby Kemper III said.
And most everywhere else. One digital library advocate found a waiting list of 127 for an e-copy of a book about chess champion Bobby Fischer at the New York Public Library.
Public library collections are mainly made up of physical books, of course, but libraries have begun contracting with e-book suppliers for lending digital books. The way the system works now, a copy of an e-book, just like a physical book, can be lent out one at a time.
But along with music and movies in the young digitized world, the handling, so to speak, of digital books is in flux.
Shari Shawo, a librarian at the Topeka and Shawnee County, Kan., Public Library, teaches a class on how to borrow e-books. People are "tickled" with their reading devices, she said, and eager to learn about e-book borrowing.
Using their library cards, patrons can go to the library's website and download an e-book to their computer and then to their e-reader, much like buying music on iTunes.
"There are a lot of steps," Shawo said. "I try to make it as simple as possible."
The digital library is always open, and e-book patrons never make late returns because digital books return themselves. At the end of the borrowing term, the e-reader can no longer access the digital copy.
No doubt readers are getting comfortable with the idea of digital books. Amazon announced this month that for the first time it is selling more e-books than physical books.
Libraries, often strapped for cash, will have trouble keeping up with that trend. Their digital collections are building, but it will take time.
So given the limits, it's partly a good thing that many people haven't heard of e-book borrowing. Gale Hansen of Shawnee, a longtime book club member who loves her e-reader, didn't realize library websites offered digital borrowing, but she said she definitely is interested.
"People have asked me about borrowing books and I've always said, 'Oh no, you can't do that,'" she said.
Mitra Templin of De Soto, Kan., got her Nook reader last August. She's a member of the Johnson County Library board and knew that the library offered e-books. The first book she tried to borrow was a best-seller, "The Help," and she was put on a waiting list (as she would have been for the physical version, too).
But Templin received an email message in a couple of weeks that the book was available. And although some titles she sought weren't available, she borrowed two - "The Speed of Dark" and "Undaunted Courage" - without a wait.
"I thought it was very easy," Templin said.
Johnson County Library spends about $2.5 million a year on physical holdings and about $50,000 on e-books and audiobooks. About 11,000 titles are available to borrow electronically, Wathen said.
Kansas City Public Library has about 2,000 digital books for checkout to e-readers and other devices and several thousand largely nonfiction titles that are downloadable, but not to e-readers. Kemper said the library expects to increase its e-book numbers dramatically this year.
Libraries don't deal directly with book publishers for digital content but contract with suppliers. A company called OverDrive is the biggest.
The Nook, which is sold by Barnes & Noble, and many other e-readers are compatible with OverDrive offerings, but Amazon's Kindle is not, for now. Just last month, Amazon announced an agreement with OverDrive that will take effect "later this year."
"That's huge," said David Lee King, digital branch and services manager in Topeka. "Almost every week now something is changing."
There are many other challenges.
Not all publishers make e-books available to libraries and their suppliers. And recently, major book publisher HarperCollins sent a jolt through the library community with this decision: Its e-titles could be purchased by a library for a total of 26 loans. After that, the library would have to buy another copy.
That pronouncement angered many librarians and managers. It didn't sit well with Wathen, although he understands that publishers need to get paid for their products.
"Twenty-six seems really low when you compare that to a physical book," he said.
Kemper agrees that HarperCollins' rule, which hasn't yet been adopted by other publishers, is too restrictive. Forty-five to 60 would be more accurate for the average life of a book, but the actual number depends on the type of book, he said.
A popular author in paperback might last only 30 readings. But other books could last 100 borrowings or more, he said.
"Almost certainly all the big book publishers will adopt some restrictions," Kemper said. "That's inevitable."
King said other models are emerging, including pay per use. The library would pay 25 cents, say, for each use, with a limit on the number of uses per year.
In that model, more than one digital copy could be checked out at a time. King supports a nonprofit group, www.libraryrenewal.org, that is looking for solutions to the problems of electronic borrowing.
"We're all evolving," Kemper said. "Ultimately the publisher is an intermediary between the reader and the author. And there has to be a way for the author to get paid."

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Three of us from the Foundation Board met yesterday with Brian Reynolds and each of San Luis Obispo County's five elected supervisors. We were impressed with the interest and support of libraries expressed by all of the supervisors, and delighted with this opportunity to talk with them about the future of our libraries. More new ideas than we expected emerged from the conversations -- be assured: they've been thinking about libraries! -- and we're looking forward to finding ways to implement many of them. Stay tuned, and ask how you can help!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

The Board of Directors of the Foundation for San Luis Obispo County Public Libraries welcomes new Directors Susan Gillespie (Nipomo) and Anne Harris (Atascadero), who join the Board as representatives of their respective Friends of the Library. Thanks to the Atascadero and Nipomo Friends for responding to our invitation with such distinguished nominees! We're delighted to have them join the Board, and look forward to adding members from other Friends groups very soon, to strengthen our joint countywide library-literacy advocacy efforts.

In case you've not yet seen the report of the joint Friends-Foundation-Literacy Task Force that met recently to tackle our collective response to the state's library budget crisis, here's a quick summary. (Some of you saw the report at the March 29 Friends Presidents Council meeting, but several were not able to attend. I've also emailed it to all the Friends presidents and to the Literacy Council.)
The Task Force (which included four FOL presidents/past presidents) came up with four key suggestions for collaboration among those of us in San Luis Obispo County who love our libraries:
(1) Mount a public relations campaign to promote libraries widely in the community.
(2) Select, from a proposed list, a few short "slogans" we can use to promote libraries.
(3) Develop a program of "Information Literacy" as a vehicle to expand library outreach.
(4) Bring representatives from each Friends group and the Literacy Council onto the Foundation Board to facilitate greater collaboration.
How can we work together to save our libraries?

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Thanks Pat, Kim, Susan, Jeri, Nan, and welcome aboard! This modest little page may grow as we find our way around and begin to share what's going on at our branches and countywide. I look forward to seeing other names as our colleagues join us. And don't be shy about bragging up the activities in your corner of the county!
Most recently, the Friends-Foundation-Literacy "Task Force" we set up at the March Foundation Board meeting has met three times and is drafting suggestions for enhanced collaboration among our groups as we confront the challenges of "what happens next." We'll have discussions at the Friends Presidents Council meeting on Tuesday 29th and the Foundation Board meeting on Wednesday April 6th.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

I hope you'll agree with me that it's time for us to get together and share our ideas for the future of support for libraries and literacy in San Luis Obispo County. The blog seems a natural 21st century venue for that sharing, and I look forward to a lively conversation among Friends, the Foundation, the Literacy Council, library staff and other partners.
This blog begins in March 2011, as the governor and legislature are agreeing on painful cuts to library and literacy programs statewide. Don't let it end there.
Eventually, when we figure out how to make this work, we'll add links to the websites of each of our organizations, and to other appropriate resources. A countywide calendar of library and literacy activities, for example, would let us quickly learn about each others' book sales, author visits, board meetings, trainings, advocacy activities, festivals, . . .
If you're an experienced blogger, or if you've never posted before, your help is most welcome. Please add your comments. Collaboration is the keyword here!